- Chapter Sixty- Four -
The More You Know x 2
Reset button pressed for the fifth time in what felt like two years, the duo were still holed up in some room out of the way, as far from the action as one could get. Drama and secrets were the key in the door, liquor the fuel on the fire that kept them warm. Something like sexual tension would occasionally peer out from the closet, and any number of familiar faces were on speed dial, ready to be pulled in at the drop of a hat. The hired hand had something buzzing around in his bonnet that he wasn't quite ready to air, and the heiress he had been hired to protect was just waking up.
It was the status quo. Maybe it was all just chance that their circumstances seemed so limited in their scope and imagination, or perhaps it was the safe option. The pair were comfortable in a way, even if they only seemed able to express a handful of sides of themselves. The protective and the protector, the damaged and the fucked. Yeah, maybe it was like they were trapped in a certain kind of space, but they were learning a fair bit about one another along the way; quite possibly even a little about themselves as well.
"Why don't we go for a walk?" Bored enough to count every visible right-angle in the room, after spending the last two thousand years doing stretches light enough for her shoulder and knees, the heiress hugged her legs to her chest. It was a reasonable enough proposal, she thought. Besides, how was he not restless?
Finished with this eighth set by then (although to be fair, she had stopped counting), Sam evened out his reps by doing two last crunches before sitting up. Sharing the floor to burn off the pent-up energy and make up for not being able to hit up the gym with his little brother as planned, for the most part there hadn't been much conversation. Frankly he was used to focusing on what he was doing, not the people he was doing it with. From what the older gent caught, the girl had kept herself busy enough, rattling off under her breath.
Despite it not really being necessary, he glanced towards the window to confirm that it was indeed still nighttime. "It's still dark out." Sam didn't particularly mind being out in the wilderness at this time if there was something on the line, although he was given pause by the thought of having to escort someone with such shoddy footing.
"So?" It was the quintessential answer, because there was never going to be a better way to say that you didn't give a single fuck.
Again, the professional swindler wasn't against the idea being floated, it was just that it seemed to fall on his shoulders to have to be the one to think things through. Either of them catching cold was the very last thing they needed; she might not have had any memory of the fact, but someone there had just fought to prevent that very thing. "It might still be raining."
Zero. Fucks. Daniella needed to get outside, to do something - literally anything - that wasn't drinking, eating, or sleeping. There was nothing there to read, meditation and yoga weren't cutting the mustard, and there was no escaping her living shadow.
Dells wasn't really angry with Sam at the moment, it just felt like he was there every time she turned around. Awaking from her nap in just a towel, he had been watching her from the corner of his eye. Going to the bathroom to get dressed, she could have sworn that she heard him breathing on the other side of the door. Even while they were doing their own things to wait for the sun to come up, it seemed to her that he was always there, lingering just a little too close.
Fair enough, she probably would have had a panic attack if he hadn't been there. During the course of all this mess, the young woman had come to rely on the man just a bit too much, it was clear. Sam... He'd given her something that she never really had before, and so it was hard to be without him - but where the hell was the fine print that said she couldn't have a breather?! The walls were closing in, and she could have sworn that there were shapes crawling in the dark.
Granted, that last part wasn't his fault. Not entirely. But the unspoken thing hanging over their heads, leeching off the bond between them, that was getting to be too much. Obviously they needed to talk about something big, and it was hard for him to find the right way to start that conversation.
If Sam of all people couldn't just say it, whatever it was, that meant that it was a huge deal... Huge enough that a part of her was scared to hear whatever it might have been. Thankfully the resemblance Daniella shared with her father was too great for anyone to second-guess, but all things considered she couldn't help but be nervous that the possibility was there...
After all, didn't they say that one tended to develop similar features to somebody else if they spent enough time together? Or was that a fallacy, another urban legend that had spread? Considering that she had spent the greater part of her life without her father, that certainly seemed like hogwash. Unless... Mama had projected so much that Daniella's own body had acted in a survival role, disguising herself as that man in all the portraits... Was that a possibility, or just the overactive imagination of someone that had dabbled in a little too much science fiction?
Brain suffering a soft fry-out, the heiress blinked away the various conspiracy theories and returned to the matter at hand. When all of that came out, fine, but she wasn't in the mood to push the issue needlessly. "What are you, a witch?"
Ever a cycle of turns between the pair, Sam could have popped the little squirt. Although maybe he should have given her some credit for knowing that reference in an age were just about everything was soulless remakes and smart phones. Nah, definitely the first one. "Very nice."
Used to this face of the man now, Dells crawled across the floor on brutalized knees and loosely embraced Sam. "Come on, don't be like that." Playing it up, she nuzzled into his back, "I can't help it. I feel like I'm going to go crazy if I stay cooped up in here! I need to get out of here for a bit, feel the wind, something! Don't you?"
Boy, she was preaching to the choir and didn't even realize the half of it. Rotating his head back so that he was able to see the royal pain in his ass, the ex-con reached up to pat her arm.
Fearful that it was going to be a 'no' out of his mouth, the young woman hastily tacked on a quick, "I promise I'll bring a jacket. Please Daddy?"
Yeah, no. Nope. No. Yuck. No. Nope. Not even a little.
Not entirely sure what had possessed her to try that one, in the awkward stretch following that ill-conceived attempt to be adorable, it almost made sense to hear in that she was doing that whole baby-talk shtick. On paper. Hanging in the air with everything else, that was just a little too much. Right?
Right. Dells had too high an opinion of her father, although if it bordered on the sexual was not an avenue either cared to explore. And Sam had known Rafe, maybe a little too well. It was a line that was uncomfortable to broach, for a number of legitimate reasons that didn't need explanation. Although... It would pair well with him always calling her baby girl, and it wasn't anything he had ever kicked anyone out of bed over before... No. No. Maybe.
Saving the moment after almost ruining it completely, the heiress amended as if she hadn't just tip-toed a line, "We don't have to go far. And if it's really bad we can just come back, deal?"
Just so long as they didn't have to address that little slip of the tongue. Sighing in the wake of the puppy dog eyes routine - a routine, that for the record had been perfected by a certain man of adventure - Sam relented. Realizing in the back of his head that she hadn't really recoiled at the unmentionable mistake, the thief released his hold and nodded toward the dresser. "Alright, go fetch the coats." She won that round.
[Every New Beginning Comes From Some Other Beginning's End]
Damp definitely the word de jour, everything was either soaked a rich cobalt or dripping with lapis lazuli. Asphalt a glittering sable river, the pavement was brushed with an earthy undercoat; the buildings themselves waterlogged monuments of blue steel and murky ebony, there was the occasional distant glow of hazy starlight in the windows. On the bright side, the worst of the rain had passed, however, the wind was just as restless as they were.
Clear enough to not even have to dream of using a telescope, the sky was alive, hosting a party throughout the cosmos that was beginning to wind down. Sapphire ink painted the horizon, brilliant hues of indigo and crushed blueberry smearing the crystalline topcoat. Refusing to go home, the final stars of the night burned in the arms of their lovers as the last song played.
You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.
Because it was so late and everything was closed, there really wasn't much of a destination in mind, and that was alright. Due to the severe storm washing away anything that hadn't been bolted down, everything was too wet to sit on, and so they had been robbed of any notion to loiter. Joke was on them anyways, as it felt good to just be outside, walking through the empty streets.
I know who I want to take me home.
Not overwhelmingly chilly with their jackets done all the way up, so long as they stayed close to one another it really wasn't so bad. The breeze would ruffle their hair a little, but there was no one else around to have to impress.
I know who I want to take me home.
Just each other. Try as one might, by this point in their relationship it really couldn't get much more worse than half-drowned corpse and... Come to think of it, the heiress really hadn't had the opportunity to see Sam at his worst yet. Sure, there had been that time he'd stayed up almost the entire time she recovered from nearly having her brains bashed in by a bottle, but who could remember the details when your head was wrapped tighter than a mummy's ass? While she wasn't actively hoping to see anything befall her local hero, it really gave things a one-sided appearance. He knew that she would stand with him no matter what, right?
I know who I want to take me home.
[Bio-Shook]
Following their feet like a wounded solider on the invisible path home, the duo wound up in a sparse area dotted with a handful of swampy shamrock sentinels. Open enough to see the ultramarine sky uninterrupted, all it took to reach this little nook was to traverse a dirt road and crawl through a bent barbwire fence. It was probably someone's home, once, but the sorry state of the fence didn't exactly scream that there was anyone that would find them. Surprisingly alright with potentially trespassing, the young woman had been the one to pull them over to the border.
"You know who lives here?" Asking the one person there that had been on the island long enough to have at least a vague sense of a map, the heiress shrugged when he didn't answer. Running her hand along the top wire, she glanced over her shoulder at Sam, "I have a good feeling about this place."
Girl was trouble. Who knew?
Hand tugging at various different places to test where the barrier was weakest, Dells followed the barbed metal a short ways before looking back at her companion. Mischief alight in her eyes, the girl beckoned her partner in crime over. Nearest street light a good ten yards ahead, he was honestly shocked that she had found the fence without first barreling into it.
Ready to show the kid how it was really done, Sam raised one foot to the lowest level to see if it could support his weight. So long as he was quick about it, it should be fine. Showing off just a little, he vaulted over to the opposite side of the not-so-great divide. Standing up straight, the man held out his hand to assist the lady.
Hesitant all of a sudden, in truth her search had yielded not just a weak point but also a hole that was just begging to be penetrated. She could take his hand, letting him feel better about the kind of girl he thought she was, or, she could show him that she wasn't entirely useless. He obviously knew what she had endured these past couple of weeks, so she didn't really need to prove anything to him. But what if she wanted to prove something to herself?
"Thank you kindly." Holding up the topmost wrung so that it didn't catch in her hair, the junior vandal ignored the offer.
Mildly impressed, he held his hands up in concession. "Alright, good on you kid."
Further inside this mythical grove, the duo came to settle underneath the picotee blue canopy. Neither were really tired from their trek yet, even though they'd come a relatively far distance from the hotel; in truth they had only paused to hydrate. Carrying two bottles each, the rookie knew a little would go a long way, but the veteran adventurer was aware of just how vital fresh water could be. And that was without waking up with a hangover.
Whistle maintained for another day, Sam felt that old itch calling him. Glancing over at the captivated young woman, from the smitten expression on her face he figured that there was enough time for a quick smoke break. Or maybe even a long one - he wouldn't say no either way.
Taken instantly by the serene natural beauty as she gazed at the stars, Dells watched the periwinkle twinkling in the heavens. Forgetting that the grass was probably as wet as a jade sea, she sat down to get a better look at the Egyptian blue canvas. Losing track a little too quickly, somehow that small moment quickly became a prolonged activity as her eyes sought out familiar constellations. Before she realized it, the heiress was sprawled out on a dewy sage liter.
Known only to her, as he lit up Sam wondered if she could recite all the names, or if her sapphire lenses were merely drawing pictures where so many had before.
"Where are ya?" Recognizing the glassy-eyed dreamer envisioning a world that they had never seen before, the world-traveled historian took a squat beside a kindred spirit. He sincerely doubted that the heiress had even heard him, yet if she were even half as at peace as she looked, he supposed he could find a way to forgive her.
Mind shifting to her father when Daniella realized the potential in this place to be the perfect camping spot, she let out a low hum. "Hm, I wonder. You know, he promised to take me camping. One of the very last promises Daddy made me was that he would take me out for a whole week," Dells trailed off then, saddened by the memory of a door that would never open again, "once he was done with his business."
Careful to take an extra long drag, the thief measured his words, and it showed, "Is that right? You uh, ever been camping?"
"A few times. My step-father used to take me, and once with my middle school class." Bringing a large grin to her cheeks, that field trip had been really fun actually, and one of the few times that biases had waned just enough to connect. And to think, she had almost opted out at the last minute. "Zachariah Scott had stolen into the girls' tent, not realizing I was there." Or maybe he had, in hindsight.
Sam could remember a similar time in his own life, breaking into the girls' rooms during various retreats at the orphanage. The first couple of times it had been on dares, until finally it had become his pleasure to lead the others in the most noble of arts. "Zachariah Scott, huh? Tell me more."
"Zach was the class bad boy. All the girls would talk about was how cute and dangerous he was-" Caught in the kind of nostalgia that wasn't really all that far removed yet felt as if it had been at least a lifetime, the heiress clarified the reason why he was such a bad ass, "He unapologetically ate meat and rode his bike to school every day, without wearing a dorky helmet. He was really cute in his torn-up skinny jeans, surrounded by all these dark, brooding secrets... You know the type." You probably invented the type.
Not all that threatened by a guy she probably hadn't seen in at least four years (even if the description went on a little long there), Sam egged it on, "Trying to make me jealous, baby girl?"
Honestly, it hadn't really occurred to her that Sam would spare a second thought about an old classmate of hers. Although, with this particular one, maybe he should. If he really cares about me at all, her inner Negative Nancy chimed almost gleefully in the background. "Would it matter? What happened is ancient history."
Did she forget what it was that he did for a living? One of the many things he did for a living? "Sounds like you want me to be."
Blinking with lamb-like innocence, she raised her head off the ground just enough to meet the man's eye, "Well if for some reason you were, you don't need to worry. I haven't spoken to Zach since freshman year. We've e-mailed each other all of three times since he left town, and he's just... different now." Bad different. Invasion of the Body Snatchers different.
Technically speaking, the last time that she had even seen Zachariah Scott face-to-face, they had severely overestimated their limits and had gotten completely wasted. Underestimated? Whichever, the point was that she had woken up in his parents' closet in only her underwear and the tie he'd worn for orientation. A number of shoes had been ruined, the second car was totaled in the front yard, a small fire had started in the pool house, and Zach had fallen asleep trying to clean himself off in the dishwasher.
Hardly around in the first place, his father had recently bailed town in wake of an abundance of overdue gambling debts, and his mother had never much cared for Daniella in the first place (rather, she had a blatant and intense dislike for the girl's parents). It was just the excuse Mrs. Scott needed to make a clean start someplace far away.
Legal action had been threatened by the adults on both sides, but ultimately her mother had paid for the incident to just disappear. What Dells hadn't expected was her friend to go too. For what it had been worth, her mother had at least tolerated Zachariah, until he had informed the heiress that he would be moving away in a text, ending their years-long friendship by saying that it would be better if they just kept things digital for a while.
"It's just weird with him now, like he became somebody else. I guess that's just high school, but never in a million years would I have guessed that things would end up like they did..." Only an oracle could have, however the teen had a hard time coming to grips with fact, now that she was thinking of him again. "I used to dream that in a perfect world, Zachariah would have been the one to-"
"Dells, I really don't need this much honesty. Really." Seriously, if the cards had been flipped, would the young woman appreciate hearing an in-depth rundown of all the people he wanted to bang? Or actually had? Probably not, unless something really snapped and it was to fashion a hit-list.
Like her mother. Yikes.
"-Take me to prom." Finishing her sentence as if there had been no interruption, she shot Sam a scathing look, "Seriously, not everything has to be sexual, you know?"
His returning look was no less dirty. It takes two, baby girl.
"Yeah, because nothing untoward ever happened at a high school prom. Just ask Carrie, Kim, Donna, or Jennifer." What pg-13 movie does she live in? For Christ's sake. "The only reason people even go to prom is to get laid." That or get drunk, but the young woman had that one more than covered. "Guy, girl, don't matter. Everyone just wants to get it in."
Possessed by big dreams of getting to try on a plethora of pretty dresses in every cut and color and material imaginable, a certain starry-eyed seventh grader had no way of knowing better. Craving the affection of a mother that had only taken so much personal time to spend with her daughter, Daniella had envisioned going to the salon with her mother for a whole day. Getting all dolled up for the dance and then going to find that perfect pair of new shoes to go with her dress. What could have been better?
In that same perfect world where Zachariah had taken her to her prom (because at the time, she hadn't known that there was a thing as both senior and junior prom), the only thing better would have been her father's involvement. She could picture it so clearly, her Daddy telling her how beautiful she was, swinging her around before letting her go with with a date that he had scarred for life.
"Forgive me if twelve-year old me was a tad naive." Short not at Sam but at the reality of her own junior prom, she settled back into her earthen bed and let her eyes roam across the years, "I finally figured out that dancing all night - just dancing - is only something that happens in the movies."
"Pretty much, yeah." Not sorry at all that neither he nor his little brother had to miss out on the grand tradition that was prom when they had gotten to experience so many better things in their lives, Sam couldn't really feel all that sympathetic to Daniella either. Sure, she was probably the girl that that kind of thing really mattered to, but what had been lost, really?
Thanking her old buddy Zach for ruining things a second time around, Dells cursed the boy in the back of her mind. She had learned her lesson, she didn't need Sam to rub it in. "Thank you for that. I never would have understood that it was stupid of me to get caught up in the fantasy on my own."
Chill dropping the temperature by a handful of degrees, the man held his cigarette between his teeth to rub his hands together for additional warmth. "What? Just trying to help you keep your expectations realistic, princess."
Princess? Wow. Hair prickling at the nape of her neck, the air just got that much colder. Dells understood that as the daughter of old money, there was a certain set of expectations about her, however she thought that Sam was above judging her for the number of zeroes in her family bank account. "Well fuck me for daring to dream what it might have been like."
While the easy joke was that he'd fuck her for less, somehow that felt inappropriate. "Might have been like? You mean you don't know? Shit, and here I thought that you were prom queen." Sam possibly might have voted for her, if that was something he did.
Daniella snorted at the mental picture of herself winning the crown. While she might have taken some joy in the looks on everyone's faces, getting the sash and crown was something that had never once interested her in the slightest. "Pretty sure you have to be asked to the dance to get voted prom queen. I'm not really the most popular girl at my school. Even if I was, you couldn't pay me to accept that 'honor'." The heiress thought so little of being crowned high school royalty that she even did the air quotes.
That was... It kinda made actual sense, looking at the young woman he had gotten to know, but counter wise to that, it made zero sense that she wasn't popular. Didn't the Adler name automatically buy that sort of thing? Or was the school she went to so elitist that they snubbed a frigging dynasty? Rafe hadn't exactly been in the business of making friends, but Jesus, had he really burned so many bridges?
Leaving that delightful conversation to hang there, the pair lapsed into silence for a bit. Huffy, slightly tense with a vaguely hostile undertone, but not entirely uncomfortable. Weighty and real, it was familiar to the pair; more so in relation what they had shared with others, but not wholly unknown between them. And maybe it didn't mean anything at all, but nether Sam nor Daniella wanted to kill the other and bury the body where no one would find it. They were alright, existing in this place together.
Finishing his smoke, the historian joined his young ward on the squelchy ground, laying down so that they could take a break gazing at the dimming window to the countless constellations above to look at one another. Bodies lined north to south, east to west, their parallel persons surely must have wanted to, because both had caught the other peeking over at least once. Somber, weightless and a speck that would be gone in an instant, as they contemplated what it was they were even doing, a giant cloud rolled across the sky.
[Fast-Forwarding the Cosmic Rewind]
"What would you be doing right now if we weren't here?" A fitting variant of the usual ice-breaker, the heiress pulled at a stray tuft of golden-brown weeds sprouting near her head, ripping from just above the root. The question may have felt like it had sprung up out of nowhere, but that didn't make it any less valid.
He didn't even need to think about his answer. "Sleeping."
Of course he was going to a smart-ass about it - he wouldn't have been Sam otherwise. Playfully offended, she sprinkled the blades of sage and mint over the top of his head, getting minuscule clumps of dirt everywhere. "I'm being serious here, Sam."
Really, he was too. Previously digging a single 'x' in the dirt to mark this place, he smoothed his hand across his semi-hard work; scooping the soft mud into his fist, the historian returned the favor and crumbled the umber rain over her head. Wiping her hair and eyes, he snickered even as she spat out dirt. "That'll teach you to doubt me. To answer your question, I would be in bed, preparing to spend the rest of the weekend with my niece for her birthday. What about you? Tell me, what does the one and only Daniella Adler have on her itinerary?"
"Ehh..." What would she be doing right about this time? Genuinely stumped by more than the irony of hours gained across time zones, it felt strange thinking to her ordinary life back in the real world. School, schedules, and no Sam (and all that being near him entailed). "Probably... studying for some big exam? Working on a paper for some class? Something to that effect."
Anticlimactic and as safe as it got, for as boring as her answer was it did make Sam realize something about the heiress. Something that would have made itself immediately noticeable from the start, were they not constantly hounded by mishap. "You take school seriously, don't you?"
"Why wouldn't I?" As her legal guardian so thoughtfully phrased it, Daniella was an Adler, and that entailed certain responsibilities; largely social in nature, there was the fate of an international juggernaut to consider. Although even if that hadn't been the case, the young woman just enjoyed reading. Especially if it involved history.
"That a trick question?" Stealing a glance at his little whiskey-toting bookworm, Sam could almost picture it perfectly: Dells buttoned proper in the traditional plaid uniform, hiding a brown paper bag between her chest and a stack of books. Invisible. "Let me guess, you're one of those that has every second of the next seventy years planned out, aren't you? That's why you're so sporty - to mix things up so you don't go crazy. Lemme rephrase, completely batshit."
"No," head shaking so furiously that the mushy mulch changed its shape, it was going to be hard to tell where the earth ended and her scalp began, "Christ no. That's been her goal ever since I can remember, but that's not me." Out beneath the open sky, Dells was no closer to figuring out what her vision for her future was. Frightening as it was to ditch the safety net, it was also an exhilarating rush. "Out here, I'm free to do whatever I want." She hadn't really meant to, but her eyes rolled over the lush sapphire expanse to rest on Sam.
Freedom... Removed from those thirteen lost years as he was going to get, when he really stopped to think about it, the ex-con saw that she had been almost as trapped as he was. They were two completely incongruent things, being locked in an ivory tower with only a book for company and being confined to a Panamanian prison. However, while she had been allowed basic human privileges, he at least had been allowed his mind, and some small escapes that needn't be quite so hidden, necessarily. Sam had over a decade's worth of things to bemoan, but Dells had been stuck with Bai. Close as that tipped the scales, house arrest had nothing on hard jail time; having said that, there were elements there that could be related to, on either side.
Dial cranked up to an solid eight of eleven, he cocked his head and smirked impishly, "That right? Well besides drinking your liver dead and scrambling to stay alive, what is it you enjoy doing?"
Coquettish, the heiress raised her arm above her head to walk her fingers over the man's similarly outstretched arm, "Is this the part where I'm supposed to say you?"
"That would be nice." Matching tit-for-tat, the thief wrapped his own fingers around her forearm, as if he meant to pull her over to him at a moment's notice.
Power in her hand to play it any way she desired, the young woman slid her ring and middle fingers along the seam of his arm, nails toeing the line in the denim. "Whoever told you that I was nice must have lied."
"Bastards." Mirth making its way to the wrinkles in the corners of his eyes, Sam lowered his hold down to her wrist. Wrestling only momentarily for dominance, the adventurer came out victorious, enveloping her entire hand in his own. "They must have sent me a defective product. You wouldn't happen to know who I have to call to demand my money back by chance, would ya?"
Lacing her fingers through his, there was a slight chance that she had let him win that round. "Now why should I tell you a thing like that? It's a cutthroat business, and you'll end up replacing me for a younger model sooner rather than later."
Younger than Dells? Keeping up well enough with a struggling gimp, it seemed highly improbable that he would find another woman like this one at any point in the future. Now if she had been concerned with getting swapped out for an older model with all the standard settings that were so familiar, that was a valid concern. "Only if you don't pull your weight and help out around the place. Against my better judgment, I suppose my wallet and I can be amenable to coming to some sort of... arrangement." That sounded just a hair dirtier than he had intended it to. "So long as we can keep finding uses for you."
Arching in the dark, it was tough to say if her brow had been moved more by his words or his actions. Guiding the way, Sam brought the deep magenta gashes to the corner of his mouth. Surprisingly holding out against this gesture, the heiress couldn't help but hear the teasing lilt in her own voice, "Such as?"
Figuring that if Daniella could survive jumping out of a two-story building into the unknown, she could handle the usual wear-and-tear of the field - if she wanted. Innocent as her notion of dancing off into the night, Sam envisioned that same lonely school girl rolling up her sleeves to swing from a grappling hook or blindly shoot out from behind cover. Alright, so maybe that was graduating Sleeping Beauty a little too quickly to the front lines, but rich kids were all about apprenticeships, right?
Victor had found Nathan, so maybe this was his chance to find a worthy successor to the treasure hunting life.
Strongly considering the possibility, whatever dreams and schemes he may have cooked up in his head didn't matter a lick if she wasn't interested in that kind of life. While it was one thing to sleep with a natural born adventurer, it was another to sign yourself up for the same lifestyle... Samuel firmly believed that Elena had what it took, but he had seen through her what all could have been on the line, what all would have to be sacrificed.
"I'm assuming that with all your fancy learning, you can at least read and write, right?" Testing the bait before trying to lure in Big Mona with the assistance of his Mojo, the thief laid out the smallest possible worm to gauge the waters. "Victor and I could always use a secretary for when we're out of the office." Which as fate would have it, was typically a fair bit.
Missing that the lure was connected to a fisherman's hook, the koi princess turned up her tail fins at the offer. After all, she didn't need to be the daughter of two titans in the industry to see that that was just bad business. "Now that's the first offensive thing you've said all night. To think you'd be so quick to squander a viable resource is just painful." In fact, the only thing more painful was that she had admit that she had paid at least a little attention to her parents' work.
Taught not to accept the first offer on the table, there were usually bigger and better rewards hidden out of sight. "I'm not saying you have to trust a known liability on the field right away, but I think it's only fair you know that I'm capable of doing more than just research. For your information, I've only thought about being a treasure hunter every single day when I was a kid. I..." Caught starting more than she'd intended to give away, Daniella confessed something that not even Zachariah Scott knew. "I always dreamed that someday I could help my daddy, and even after... Well, between us, I entertained the notion of finding him longer than I probably should have."
"What changed your mind?" Not entirely sold that she had fully given up that particular dream just yet, Sam knew that Dells would only say such a thing because she had a reason. You hear something enough, and it becomes damn near impossible to ignore.
Of course her reason had a three-letter name. "My mother... She always told me that realistically, it never works out for treasure hunters. Either they stab each other in the back or they aim too high only to fall back down to their deaths. She's probably said it a million different ways, but in the end, she always found a way to close the same wound." If your father died hunting for some golden goose, what hope do you have?
Both clenching itself and somehow absent at the same time, Daniella's hand had started to feel the weight of the one around it. Skin-to-skin, it was more than she'd gotten in the past, yet talking of her mother could only make her think of the iron fist that had held her tethered down all these long years. Struggling to be free, Sam only held on tighter.
"You never know until ya try." Encouraging the heiress where her mother clearly had not, it was all too easy to find himself sitting front row to Bai stamping out any and all semblance of confidence in her daughter. Heaven forbid the girl show even a hint of defiance.
Relishing the shades of blue that passed overhead almost as much as the feeling of someone else holding her hand, the heiress shut her eyes. "It sounds so nice when you say it like that. But even if I were to just strike out on my own, I wouldn't even know where to start looking."
Usually the key was to zone in on what it was you wanted to find - in this case, a bunch of bones crushed to dust on a sunken pirate ship... That was still loaded with gold... Unclaimed gold. No, it was as good as lost, right? Right. Telling himself that there was no getting back into that cave (and back out), Sam reminded himself that the real prize was the discovery, not the reward itself. Although, since it was an empty wasteland, was there a better place to train his young ward than Libertalia? She had more than enough money to charter a boat, and...
Gleeful as a child unwrapping their final gift under the Christmas tree, the fortune finder nearly missed the thoughtful green cadence in her tone. "I mean... I know it was in Madagascar." For the sake of the hypothetical expedition, the historian let out a sigh of relief; much as he would have hated to side with Bai, if Dells couldn't figure out where to start when it was a matter of public record, she really might have been a lost cause after all. "But that's according to officials. Given what my father was into, he could have died anywhere. Honestly, Henry Avery being in Scotland was enough of a stretch, but Madagascar? What could he possibly have hoped to find?"
"Libertalia." Come on, this was someone that from the sounds of things could sincerely appreciate his discovery! Like hell he wasn't going to gloat about it. "Henry Avery founded a pirate colony."
"Pirate colony?!" A thousand and one questions vying for first billing, it was an itch she didn't even knew she had. Springing up so quickly that she gave herself whiplash, if he had been leaning over her, Sam would have gotten a major concussion. "With who? Anyone notable? What happened?! Were they a self-sustaining colony, or did they survive largely on trade? Did they have any enemies? Was it ruled as an autocracy, a diplomacy, dictatorship, or monarchy? Where is this place? How does no one know about this?!" Of everything she asked, there were two very important questions that she didn't.
Pleasantly surprised that anyone could get half as excited about this as he had, Sam reveled in this moment, picking and choosing what to answer when. "It was founded by a bunch of irreputable scalawags. The Rhode Island Pirate was his right-hand man."
"Thomas Tew?!" No way, Sam had to be bullshitting her. "How do you know?"
Grinning wide at the sheer velocity of eagerness bombarding him alone, when he heard that Daniella knew who Thomas Tew was, he made up his mind. Giving her hand another light squeeze, the thief was quickly right back in the thick of it. "Because I was there. I discovered Libertalia." Almost as an after-thought, Sam recalled that he hadn't been alone on that island. "Along with my little brother, who just so happened to be tagging along."
Mr. Drake? Wondering if Elena had been there too, the heiress could hardly wait to hear this tale. "You found a secret pirate colony?! That's like, the legit coolest thing EVER!" So cool in fact that just for a moment, it eclipsed the unsettled matter of her father's involvement. "What was it like? What did you see?!"
For half a heartbeat, Sam contemplated saying that he could show her, if she wanted. Whatever her answer to that would have been, he liked the current hand they were playing. "A bunch of stuff. I was even in Henry Avery's mansion. You know, for a pirate he sure had kingly taste." Ostentatious, his little brother would have said, but Sam figured that if you had that kind of wealth, why not go a little crazy and indulge?
Kingly? Wondering if that was some kind of allusion to a previous inquiry that had fallen by the wayside, Daniella shook her head, "You can't be serious. That's just way too cool to be real."
"Seriously." Ruffling her pale phantom locks to remind her of the consequences of doubting his word, the historian was legitimately on the up and up with this one. "I took a first-rate tour through the colony, all the way up through New Devon." Sam didn't have to wait long to see the spark of recognition in her eyes. "We were even on Avery's ship. Saw his corpse with my own two eyes."
"How did he die?" History had one version of events, so he could hardly blame the girl for being thirsty for an alternative.
Unfortunately, this was the part where it became impossible to forget that Rafe had been involved in the story as well. Dancing around the hole in the hull, Sam didn't quite meet Daniella's eyes, "He and Tew had it out on-board The Fancy, to the death."
"But," going back to every sword fight she had even seen depicted or conjured up from the pages of a book, the heiress frowned as the outcome, "wasn't that his first mate you said?" She could only imagine what had come between them, to murder someone that you had once trusted so much.
"What do you expect out of pirates?" His brow shot up so quickly that for just a moment it seemed to have vanished into his hairline.
Shrugging in response, her brain betrayed her and wandered into the territory of cursed questions. Could something like that happen to us? It felt natural enough to ask, if not verging on wrong. "Fair enough. Do you have any clue why they might have been fighting?"
As a matter of fact, he did. In short, it was almost the same thing that had torn apart his family just as he was getting it back. It was the very thing that above all else had cost Dells hers. "Avery's millions."
Henry Avery's legendary millions. As that sank in, Daniella finally managed to remember that her father had been hunting for that very same treasure... But was it at the same time? It was probably too coincidental to have been far off the mark from running into one another at least once, yet with every fiber of her being Dells found herself wishing, hoping, and praying that she was wrong. That Sam had made all these wonderful discoveries before or after her father had passed through.
Please, no. Please, don't let this be what I think it is. "Sam, who else was involved with your adventure?"
Desperate, the way that she enunciated 'your', he could tell where she had gone off too, and he knew in the pit of his stomach that he couldn't bring her back from this one. True, Samuel could have stalled for a few minutes more by forcing her to have to ask once more (with even more razors stuck in the back of her throat, no doubt). If he were cruel, he could have dragged this thing out by bringing his little brother and everyone else down with him. He even could have refused to answer her (Rafe would have played it that way, he just knew it). But Daniella was damaged enough, so he couldn't do that to her again.
'I already know', her eyes seemed to say. Drake wished that that was true, that he didn't have to be the one to tell her the reason why she had grown up without her dad. "Dells..."
Thicc with two 'c's, a lump formed in his own throat, and she had grown impatient waiting. "You told me that there was a reason I felt like I had to get that drunk. What was it?"
Heart sinking, Daniella was beginning to figure it out for herself, but she wanted Sam to say the words. No, she needed to hear him say the words, so she knew that they were true. Just tell me that you never met my father, that you weren't involved, that we can go on living our lives without this shadow hanging over our heads. Lie to me if you have to, just tell me what I want to hear, damn you! Pleading mutely with her eyes, there was never the same shade of sapphire in her gaze as there was in that moment.
Bringing their combined hands to the side of her face with a final squeeze, Sam wanted to lie to her about everything, denounce his involvement, even claim that he had never met Rafe in his life. But he couldn't. Not because it would have been wrong to deceive the young woman, but because the rest of the world had played his hand for him. Chloe and Nadine had all but promised to check that he made good with the heiress, so the rest weren't liable to be far behind. And say that he could somehow manage to convince them that lying to her was for the best, there was still Bai to contend with.
Terrified of what she was going to hear, she was prepared to live the rest of her life in denial if she had to. It might have made her weak, but it was what she thought best. "Wait, before you say anything else, know that I believe you. With all of my heart."
I trust you. He had hated that she said that. He hated it so much. Lost in the middle of the sea, Sam could hear her words echoing in his head; he could also see how twisted things had become as a result, and how quickly. In a genuine moment of honest vulnerability, Dells had told him one thing, but now that they were at a crossroads on a cliff leading into a bottomless ravine, she was saying another.
A test this was not, but was it an early sign of her being unable to cope yet again?
On the first day after Sam had let it slip, he had expected the girl to lash out, to declare that she wasn't okay with the truth, that she would never be okay again, some melodramatic shit like that. Instead, she had gone catatonic and drank herself into next week. The following day - technically - she had been massively hungover as a result. There'd been a brief instance when she'd had her shit together enough to demand the answers she'd long been owed, but that clarity didn't last long.
Was it because they had put the song on repeat, or was the record merely broken?
"Dells," starting again, he knew what had to be done.
A little on the trickier side now that things had changed, he could have attempted to exonerate himself by pointing out that Rafe had completely lost it at the end. He could have appealed to the princess persona and painted a picture that the crazy bastard loved his little girl. Sam even could have told her that he and Nathan (mostly Nathan) had tried to save him, but he'd gone down with Avery's ship. Like with all stories, there was a kernel of truth to each of these, except the way he could have (and most likely would have) framed it, they would have been more untrue than not.
Sam's first instinct as a survivor was to do what he always did, but all he could think about was Nathan's face before the cliff left its mark. It had been so hurt, so utterly betrayed; not because of the lie itself (although that too was something they'd had to talk about), but because his little brother had wanted to believe in him. In the Sam that he had promised to be.
Daniella had the same exact look on her face now, the most fragile part of herself obviously wishing that she could somehow wrap her head around what needed to be said. In so many ways she was the lost lamb calling out to the prowling wolf, the inmate yet to learn the definition of insanity.
"We did it, we actually found Avery's treasure." Some of the pride was still sticking to the words, yet largely they had been punctured, deflating into the open air.
"We?" Those same hungry gray-blue eyes were staring back up at him, the steely depths shining with an unshakable determination and quite possibly even a death wish. Not in the right frame of mind, it was almost akin to his tenure in Scotland. Or even in Madagascar, battling through the viridian leaves of the jungle and the pirate-made mummy bombs, side-by-side.
Clearly she knew that Nathan had been involved in this particular exploit, and of all the people that had been there, there was only one that mattered to the heiress. About to drop the name that would alter all, Sam caught himself before he could get the first letter out. Could he tell her about how he knew Rafe without going into his own story?
It never would be the first thing he'd say about himself, yet in his own words, Sam never really had been as closed off about his past as his little brother. As the older sibling, maybe it was that he had at least gotten to enjoy a few extra years; maybe it the inverse, that he had had to go to those dark places to provide for himself and his little brother. Maybe it was just the kind of guy he was. Whatever it boiled down to, Samuel knew what he was and where he came from. And for a long time, he had never really been all that bothered by folks sticking their nose up at him.
Until he had met Rafe. Misjudging the multibillionaire to be just another rich idiot that he could take for a ride, Sam learned quickly that his new financier was more than he appeared. Unhinged, spoiled, and thoroughly determined to make his own name in the world, he'd been the perfect cocktail of crazy. Dangerous, and above all that kind of hypnotic fun that turned into a Molotov waiting to explode. Obviously it was a toxic attraction that would only end badly, yet he'd endorsed the man to his little brother, insisting that it was their only chance. In a way, he wasn't wrong about that...
Long story short, Rafe had been a bad call for the Drake brothers. Sam had seen his idea of 'dealing' with Vargas a mile away, and Nathan had never trusted him, with good reason. In hindsight, he was a little surprised that Rafe's people hadn't left Nate to drown in the ocean after their escape - Rafe said only that he thought Nathan might prove useful, but the topic had only come up the once. Who knew with Bai?
Thirteen long years later, Sam had repeated the same exact mistake, falling right back into bed with the same asshole that left him to rot. The difference was, he wasn't going to be the only one who got fucked over. He'd had a plan: find a solid lead, recruit his little brother, and profit. Things had gotten a little messy in the middle there, getting tangled once more in the man (and his main bitch), but who could blame a guy that had been in the pen for over a decade? Although if there was anything good to be said about that situation, it was that every minute wasted had made it that much easier to keep his eyes on the prize. Rafe could say whatever he wanted to Sam to remind him of the vast differences between where they came from and where they belonged, but it couldn't get to him anymore.
Lo and behold, after what was roughly another thirteen years, everything was coming back full circle, and Sam found that he had lost most of that immunity. Beginning some vague place with the origin of the brothers Drake, Sam's roots were something that would mention vaguely when relevant, not really caring one way or another. Then he met a ticking time bomb masquerading as a beautiful stranger, and that all had blown up in his face. A snob like Rafe would inevitably make him feel like shit for every tiny possible thing he could, but Dells wouldn't do such a thing, right? Not intentionally, but sometimes the biggest hurts came from the most innocent of accidents. Of pity, pressure, or plain ignorance.
Asking himself once more if he minded her knowing where he had come from, the thief realized that that was going to be a long story. And personal.
Digging down deep out of some pesky little thing he'd been told was guilt, Sam found himself delving further and further back into the past for the moment that this had all begun. Bracing himself to divulge more to Dells than he remembered telling anyone else before, it occurred to him that it was something he'd never done while sober. He owed her that much. Or, he felt like he did at any rate.
So far as he had been concerned, Rafe had deserved it, and even Bai to a certain extent, but not their daughter. Sam's own father had been a real piece of work, however he had been given the chance to figure that out for himself; born with natural blinders, it probably would have taken the heiress longer than it should have to see what Rafe really was. Paradoxically, if he hadn't gone down on Avery's ship and had remained in his daughter's life, she wouldn't have become the person she was today, guaranteed. And they probably never would have met.
Sam of yesteryear would have asked what he owed this girl, but that was old Sam. Having more experience and some degree of personal growth since then, he could admit that he had to shoulder some of the blame for Daniella's situation. He may have become a bigger man, but he was still far from sainthood.
"It started with two brothers, looking to find the remains of the Gunsway heist..."
Author's Note:
"Closing Time", by Semisonic.
(Also, I apologize in advance - I wrote a lot of this chapter while sick. I dare say all of it, but technically the final bits are re-worked segments that I wrote back during Daniella's bender. I think. Might have come up with it before that... Anyways, sorry if this is way messier than it looks to me.)